"What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That's what their substance is"

"A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect"

"I don't know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens"

"The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation"

"Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed"

"What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote"

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it"

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn"

"Facts are not science - as the dictionary is not literature"

"Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author's soul. If that upheaval is not present then it must come from the works of any other author which happens to be handy and easily adapted"

"I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time"